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Use Russia's money
The Observer
|October 26, 2025
Europe has missed its chance to hit Putin's finances
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Bleak experience suggests there are two ways of making Vladimir Putin change his behaviour. One is to inflict defeat or a serious setback on his armed forces.
The other is to wreck his economy. He has suffered setbacks but hasn’t been defeated. His economy has been squeezed but not wrecked. Inflation is high but so are wages. The energy sector continues to fund the war in Ukraine, even though most Russian oil exports are sold at a discount.
Last week, three years too late, the US imposed serious sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies. This will limit the amount of money Putin has to maul Ukraine. At the same time, Europe had a chance to increase - dramatically - the sum Ukraine has to defend itself. Unfortunately, it wasn’t taken.
This story is from the October 26, 2025 edition of The Observer.
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